Proactively “From the Sea”; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.

Monday, January 23, 2012

This whole article is full of win for a variety of reasons. First let's start with something that I really wish a USA lawmaker would say about LCS. This quote is from Malaysian lawmaker Tony Pua about their government jumping on the Bu11sh1tBingo bandwagon on their next purchase of corvettes,

“We would now like to call upon Mindef to ‘call a spade a spade’ and stop the attempt to disguise our acquisition with fancy names to justify their substantial cost,” he said in a statement today.

Amen my Malaysian brother.

We all know that LCS is just a speed-fetish's version of a large corvette. A slightly armed, sub-optimal corvette at that.

He pointed out that the LCS is a specific type of ship built to a specific length, speed and design by the US navy and no other country. He added that the US’ currently had only two such vessels in service and was building others.

Of course - no one else can afford to pay so much for a ship that provides so little. Then again, we are flush with cash that we can afford to spend $1.75 for $.90 in utility, right?

While we are at it - let's look at what they are buying.

The DAP lawmaker said he could now confirm that the government was not acquiring “littoral combat ships (LCS)” as claimed, but another class of naval vehicles called “Gowind Class Corvettes”.

DCNS, through its local partner in Malaysia, Boustead Naval Shipyard (BNS), has won its first export contract for a Gowind ship. The €2.14 bn deal has been signed by BNS with the Malaysian government for six Gowind-class corvettes...The six corvettes, the first of which will be delivered in 2017, the others following at six-monthly intervals, will be armed with a 57mm gun as well as surface-to-air missiles and torpedoes. The 107-m long, 2,400-ton ships will also carry a Eurocopter EC-275 helicopter.

It is a "scalable" class of warships that, though small to medium-small, seem to pack quite a punch in the generic package.

If you want to be able to run away - LCS is your ship - but being that in this line of work running away isn't an option more often than not - GOWIND or LCS; which ship do you want to take in harm's way? Even more - which would you rather have - 6 GOWIND or 4 LCS?

17 comments:

Byron
said...

"<span>If you want to be able to run away" From what? It's not like the days of wind or dreadnoughts, where if they can get into cannon range they'll pound you to bits. It's the age of missiles, which the LCS will never outrun, or high velocity cannon fire from shore patrol boats that they can't bring the 57mm to bear on because it's so damn high out of the frigging water! You can't run away from the fact that one hit that the guys in Repair Five can plug up or re-connect in 10 minutes aren't there any more...they're in CIC pushing buttons, dammit! WAR IS NOT PUSHBUTTON.</span><span></span><span>Good for those folks...at least they know $hit from Shinola</span>

well... the point is that there ARE numerous examples of small corvette/OPV type ships which are perfectlty suited for smaller navies and probably better suited for the USN. Is it just me who seemed to hear Bob Work say at SNA that ships smaller than the 3000 ton LCS can be filled in by others? If so I very much disagree.

AND I would add that the USN could buy one of these foreign designs for construction in the US. Except that NIH rules at WNY.

The USN should start now to have another class of small combatant IOC by the time the first 24 LCS are completed (and the faults of their designs become painfully obvious). NAVSEA should be able to contract for one OPV in ten years?

What I tried to point out yesterday was that even smaller warboats such as FACs and/or Fast Patrol Boats can easilty be procured from US shipyards but the USN seems not to want them? Will the Cyclone PCs not be replaced?

Malaysia is quite down to business, fast growing economy benefitting from proximity to the powerhouse of the Singapore. And it is a functioning Islamic country!Such small-to-medium ASEAN countries will probably form the China containment alliance, even if no one calls it officially... and definitely they will need max bang for their bucks.update: and they got ROYAL Malaysian Navy!Quite small but modern icluding 2 Scorpene class SSK... they alone are enough to make straits of Malakka a true chokepoint!

Any option that includes zero, or at least no more than two, LCS is a win for the U.S. navy and taxpayers. If we actually get some Gowinds or even the Bayliner and .30-06 we are ahead in terms of capability, as well as costs.

Remember that with most cost quotes of ship contracts in that quarter of the world it is, unlike with LCS, "system cost", i.e. it includes much cost not figured in the LCS quotes like missiles, munitions, a generous spares, documentation, training (often tactical and career training of the buying navy's operators by the selling country's navy) and ILS package, industry development in the customer country and about 10+% bribes, -erm- "commission", in the case of Malaysia if one goes by the history of the Scorpene deal.

She may be the best hull in that size of that time though one could argue the slightly larger Whitewater. Sure, today you could pick a few more, Regulator, Contendor, etc - but she is still the Caddy of her class.